Advertising and Social Reality: A Point of View

Abstract

One of the basic philosophical issues still not resolved in current advertising practice is whether advertising should ‘reflect’ or influence’ the current social environment. Advertising professionals, especially the chief executives of advertising agencies, favour the ‘reflective’ position because of the practicalities of everyday marketing. The loss of a client's account will usually result in the loss of millions of dollars in billings for an agency. This is a high price to pay if a client considers a campaign to be an unfashionable moral crusade or a display of unfettered licence in the intricacies of an esoteric art.